Hillary Clinton: The downside of her time at State

By Aaron David Miller

Updated 8:46 AM ET, Tue October 13, 2015

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Hillary Clinton accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for president at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 28. The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state was the first woman to lead the presidential ticket of a major political party.

Hide Caption

1 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Before marrying Bill Clinton, she was Hillary Rodham. Here she attends Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Her commencement speech at Wellesley's graduation ceremony in 1969 attracted national attention. After graduating, she attended Yale Law School.

Hide Caption

2 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Rodham was a lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee, whose work led to impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon in 1974.

Hide Caption

3 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

In 1975, Rodham married Bill Clinton, whom she met at Yale Law School. He became the governor of Arkansas in 1978. In 1980, the couple had a daughter, Chelsea.

Hide Caption

4 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Arkansas' first lady, now using the name Hillary Rodham Clinton, wears her inaugural ball gown in 1985.

Hide Caption

5 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

The Clintons celebrate Bill's inauguration in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1991. He was governor from 1983 to 1992, when he was elected President.

Hide Caption

6 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Bill Clinton comforts his wife on the set of "60 Minutes" after a stage light broke loose from the ceiling and knocked her down in January 1992.

Hide Caption

7 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

In June 1992, Clinton uses a sewing machine designed to eliminate back and wrist strain. She had just given a speech at a convention of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union.

Clinton accompanies her husband as he takes the oath of office in January 1993.

Hide Caption

10 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

The Clintons share a laugh on Capitol Hill in 1993.

Hide Caption

11 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton unveils the renovated Blue Room of the White House in 1995.

Hide Caption

12 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton waves to the media in January 1996 as she arrives for an appearance before a grand jury in Washington. The first lady was subpoenaed to testify as a witness in the investigation of the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. The Clintons' business investment was investigated, but ultimately they were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Hide Caption

13 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

The Clintons hug as Bill is sworn in for a second term as President.

Hide Caption

14 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

The first lady holds up a Grammy Award, which she won for her audiobook "It Takes a Village" in 1997.

Hide Caption

15 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

The Clintons dance on a beach in the U.S. Virgin Islands in January 1998. Later that month, Bill Clinton was accused of having a sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Hide Caption

16 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton looks on as her husband discusses the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 26, 1998. Clinton declared, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." In August of that year, Clinton testified before a grand jury and admitted to having "inappropriate intimate contact" with Lewinsky, but he said it did not constitute sexual relations because they had not had intercourse. He was impeached in December on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Hide Caption

17 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

The first family walks with their dog, Buddy, as they leave the White House for a vacation in August 1998.

Hide Caption

18 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

President Clinton makes a statement at the White House in December 1998, thanking members of Congress who voted against his impeachment. The Senate trial ended with an acquittal in February 1999.

Hide Caption

19 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton announces in February 2000 that she will seek the U.S. Senate seat in New York. She was elected later that year.

Hide Caption

20 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton makes her first appearance on the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

Hide Caption

21 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Sen. Clinton comforts Maren Sarkarat, a woman who lost her husband in the September 11 terrorist attacks, during a ground-zero memorial in October 2001.

Hide Caption

22 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton holds up her book "Living History" before a signing in Auburn Hills, Michigan, in 2003.

Hide Caption

23 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton and another presidential hopeful, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, applaud at the start of a Democratic debate in 2007.

Hide Caption

24 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Obama and Clinton talk on the plane on their way to a rally in Unity, New Hampshire, in June 2008. She had recently ended her presidential campaign and endorsed Obama.

Hide Caption

25 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Obama is flanked by Clinton and Vice President-elect Joe Biden at a news conference in Chicago in December 2008. He had designated Clinton to be his secretary of state.

Hide Caption

26 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton, as secretary of state, greets Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during a meeting just outside Moscow in March 2010.

Hide Caption

27 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

The Clintons pose on the day of Chelsea's wedding to Marc Mezvinsky in July 2010.

Hide Caption

28 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

In this photo provided by the White House, Obama, Clinton, Biden and other members of the national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

Hide Caption

29 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton checks her Blackberry inside a military plane after leaving Malta in October 2011. In 2015, The New York Times reported that Clinton exclusively used a personal email account during her time as secretary of state. The account, fed through its own server, raises security and preservation concerns. Clinton later said she used a private domain out of "convenience," but admits in retrospect "it would have been better" to use multiple emails.

Hide Caption

30 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton arrives for a group photo before a forum with the Gulf Cooperation Council in March 2012. The forum was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Hide Caption

31 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Obama and Clinton bow during the transfer-of-remains ceremony marking the return of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who were killed in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012.

Hide Caption

32 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton ducks after a woman threw a shoe at her while she was delivering remarks at a recycling trade conference in Las Vegas in 2014.

Hide Caption

33 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton, now running for President again, performs with Jimmy Fallon during a "Tonight Show" skit in September 2015.

Hide Caption

34 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton testifies about the Benghazi attack during a House committee meeting in October 2015. "I would imagine I have thought more about what happened than all of you put together," she said during the 11-hour hearing. "I have lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been wracking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done." Months earlier, Clinton had acknowledged a "systemic breakdown" as cited by an Accountability Review Board, and she said that her department was taking additional steps to increase security at U.S. diplomatic facilities.

Hide Caption

35 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders shares a lighthearted moment with Clinton during a Democratic presidential debate in October 2015. It came after Sanders gave his take on the Clinton email scandal. "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails," Sanders said. "Enough of the emails. Let's talk about the real issues facing the United States of America."

Hide Caption

36 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton is reflected in a teleprompter during a campaign rally in Alexandria, Virginia, in October 2015.

Hide Caption

37 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton walks on her stage with her family after winning the New York primary in April.

Hide Caption

38 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

After Clinton became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, this photo was posted to her official Twitter account. "To every little girl who dreams big: Yes, you can be anything you want -- even president," Clinton said. "Tonight is for you."

Hide Caption

39 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Obama hugs Clinton after he gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The president said Clinton was ready to be commander in chief. "For four years, I had a front-row seat to her intelligence, her judgment and her discipline," he said, referring to her stint as his secretary of state.

Hide Caption

40 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton arrives at a 9/11 commemoration ceremony in New York on September 11. Clinton, who was diagnosed with pneumonia two days before, left early after feeling ill. A video appeared to show her stumble as Secret Service agents helped her into a van.

Hide Caption

41 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

Clinton addresses a campaign rally in Cleveland on November 6, two days before Election Day. She went on to lose Ohio -- and the election -- to her Republican opponent, Donald Trump.

Hide Caption

42 of 43

Photos:Hillary Clinton's life in the spotlight

After conceding the presidency to Trump in a phone call earlier, Clinton addresses supporters and campaign workers in New York on Wednesday, November 9. Her defeat marked a stunning end to a campaign that appeared poised to make her the first woman elected US president.

Story highlights

But Clinton, try as she might, likely will be hurt by burden of public disapproval of Obama foreign policy, Miller says

Aaron David Miller is a vice president and distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. He is the author of "The End of Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President." Follow him on Twitter @aarondmiller2. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN)The last secretary of state to accede to the presidency was James Buchanan, and that was 158 years ago. And there's a reason for that.

Modern secretaries of state don't tend to be politicians who have a lot of experience in elected office or around politics, though they do have political ambitions.

Aaron David Miller

Hillary Clinton is an exception, of course. And hopefully, should she win, she won't follow in the footsteps of Buchanan, who, despite having one of the best resumes in the presidential biz, turned out to be one of our worst presidents.

So will Clinton's tenure as the nation's top diplomat help or hurt her campaign for the presidency? You'll probably see the upside in Tuesday's debate. But there are downsides too. And here's why.

The second best job in government?

Read More

On the face of it, being secretary of state has got to be the second best job in government for the aspiring pol. No job other than the presidency affords you as serious a set of responsibilities, the aura of nonpartisanship, your own aircraft (formerly an Air Force One), and nonstop visibility, either trying to pre-empt crises or just, as George Shultz used to say, tending the diplomatic garden.

Hillary Clinton's decision to take the job was a smart call for presidential prep. She became the most recognizable woman on the planet, added to an already formidable knowledge of the world gained as a first lady and a U.S. senator, and now knows her way around the contemporary foreign policy universe -- who's who and what's what.

JUST WATCHED

Clinton abandons trade deal she called "gold standard"

MUST WATCH

Americans may not follow the details of diplomacy and foreign policy much. But they want their presidents to be commanding, knowledgeable and well-versed in the affairs of the the world.

The Democratic debate should be a good stage for Clinton on the foreign policy side. None of the other Democratic candidates can claim her expertise; she knows the players and issues and won't get jammed up on answering questions about the difference between Kurds and the Quds Force, as Donald Trump did.

And in calling for a no-fly zone in Syria, she's tried to distance herself from President Obama on Syria just enough to walk a fine line between Democratic hawks and doves. That she supported the Iraq War, and endorsed the trans-Pacific trade deal scores of times and is now walking away from it, are problems she'll have to triangulate. But she's Clinton, after all. No, the debate ought to show the upside of her being secretary of state.

But the downsides are clear too. Having worked for half a dozen secretaries of state, I can say it's not so easy being a truly successful one. Henry Kissinger and James Baker come to mind as two of the most consequential because they were associated with enough personal successes to outweigh the asterisks in their administrations' foreign policy records.

Empty spaces on her record

Full disclosure: I know and like Clinton. But my own take on her four years is mixed. Obama controlled most of the big issues (Iran and Israel, for example) and, with the Pentagon, ran the wars. She was left with loser issues and a risk-averse president on crises such as Libya, Iraq and Syria.

She can credibly claim that she advocated for more assertive approaches. But that doesn't help fill in the empty spaces on her record. Nor will it help her with Democrats wary of tough interventionist approaches, particularly when they involve use of military force.

Clinton identified an agenda of 21st-century issues -- women, environment, youth, State Department reforms and social media. I call it planetary humanism. But it's not an agenda that gets you into the Secretary of State Hall of Fame.

The fact is in a general election against a Republican candidate who actually knows foreign policy (Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush), her time as secretary of state might well come to be seen as a disadvantage. Benghazi surely won't help her win votes, although Rep. Kevin McCarthy's comments about how the Republicans wanted to use the scandal will. Against an able Republican adversary, it will not be easy trumpeting the Democrats' foreign policy record against the backdrop of a bloody Middle East tableau and Russian President Vladimir Putin's assertiveness.

Inheriting Obama's problem

The problem isn't Clinton's foreign policy smarts or sound instincts as much as it is Obama's record. In August, a CNN poll found 56% of Americans disapproved of his handling of foreign policy.

The Republicans will hammer Obama's foreign policy -- from Iran to Syria to Iraq -- as lacking leadership and resolve. The Iran agreement will be exhibit A; hasty withdrawal from Iraq, B; Syria, C, with Putin's intervention not far behind. And of course ISIS, too. A significant ISIS-claimed attack on the United States before the elections could be the coup de grace for a Democratic candidate.

We don't know where any of these issues will be a year from now, of course. But right or wrong, the sense that the world is on fire and looks a whole lot worse now than it did at the beginning of the Obama presidency will help create a perception of weak leadership and abdicated responsibility. Try as she might, Clinton can't walk away from a president whose foreign policy she helped shape and endorse, or from a president whose constituencies -- blacks, Hispanics, and youth -- she needs to get elected..

In the end, the biggest challenge for Hillary Clinton as a former secretary of state is the one beyond her control: the perception -- correct or not -- among enough voters in the general election that Barack Obama has been a weak, even failed, foreign policy president.